The Scorecard Review news

News: Jamie Foxx is in negotiations to play the titular role in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. The film is currently set to hit screens on December 25, 2012.Source: Deadline

Thoughts by TSR: Quentin Tarantino has yet to make a film I dislike, so hearing he’d finished writing his follow-up to Inglourious Basterds was cause enough for celebration. The film is Django Unchained, and it deals with a freed slave’s quest to reunite with his wife and take down plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, in a villainous performance I cannot wait to see). Along the way he receives guidance from a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter (Oscar winner Christoph Waltz). Also expected to be involved is Tarantino favorite Samuel L. Jackson. He will play a slave who keeps Candie’s other slaves in line.

Now negotiations are on for the titular role, and it’s another Oscar winner. This time it’s Jamie Foxx, and I’m not ecstatic. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked Foxx before (particularly in Collateral and Jarhead), but there were other potential names I preferred. Will Smith was Tarantino’s first choice, and while it would have been interesting to see him stretch, the name I was really rooting for was Idris Elba (“The Wire”). He’s an actor I love, and I think he could have owned this challenging role.

Unfortunately that was not to be, so we’re left with Foxx at this point. Again, he certainly has talent, so I hope he proves me wrong and adds Django to the long list of memorable performances in Tarantino films. Besides, who am I to argue with the man who brought us Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill?